love like lightning
by UnderThePureMoon
Summary: it goes just as quickly as it came. / or, a collection of Layclaire related ficlets. / Most Recent: the professor makes a change.
1. Drabble 1: are we losing or beginning?

**Lmao this is really just a place for me to dump my feelings about Layclaire, and also to help me get back into the fandom so I can finish Serendipity. Like, Christ man, I have had that story's plot planned out for the longest time and I haven't done anything with it. Woops. Expect one to three chapters over Christmas break (which starts Wednesday. It's Monday. I have one half day left). I would say a few more but I have project to do over break.**

**In any case, if you haven't guessed, Layclaire is my ultimate OTP. The OTP of all my OTPs. It has been for years, but I just don't write it enough, and now that my writing style has changed into something I actually sort of approve of, I figured I'd do this. The title of this collection might be subject to change.**

**The title of this piece - "love like lightning" - is inspired by a song, and that song is: "Yeah Boy And Doll Face" by Pierce the Veil, which is a bit questionable for these two, I do admit. However, I just had my music on shuffle and that song came on and suddenly I was writing this. Each little snippet's chapter title will be a lyric from the song, but in no particular order. You don't have to listen to it, and none of these will actually follow the song very well.**

**I do not own anything, and you may request if you'd like, though I'm awful at requests and I usually take the gist of it, and then fuck with the rest of it. Just so you know, for the sake of your future request possibly being filled. Yes, I will take AU requests, but your request might come out as a drabble, a one-shot or something else. It'll depend on my mood. **

**I'll shut up now.**

* * *

Contrary to both the saying and what he had previously though, Professor Hershel Layton learns that time does _not _heal all wounds. Perhaps once upon a time he had believed that wounds _do_ heal over time, like when he believed in coincidences.

But that part of him had left long before he had lost Claire.

So maybe it was foolish to think that he would be over what he had lost. Because when he first sees the woman who looks so much like her, he swears he might faint. Nothing he could ever say or do could wipe how much shock he was in, how much pain he was in.

Maybe it was even more foolish of him to think that she was never really gone. Randall may have come back, yes, but then again, Randall never actually _died, _so to speak. But Claire did. He knew what happened. The blast, the smoke. Her and everything that made her human - all gone.

So why was he being toyed with? Why was there a woman who looked so much like her that obviously wasn't her?

For whatever reason, the Professor felt like he was being punished.

And, despite himself, he laughed. He laughed at the irony of his hope, at how he could never truly be over her and her pretty smile.

Some wounds just don't heal.


	2. FFX AU: but i couldn't let you go

**This is an FFX AU. A basic understanding of the plot is ideal, though I explain things, just not in detail. You don't need detail, though, and I'm pretty sure you can grasp what I'm getting at - or at least the basic concepts.**

**I don't own FFX or PL or anything, really.**

* * *

A storm rages outside, and those inside the small store-slash-hotel wonder when it will end, though they know the unbearable answer: that it never will. The cruel, harsh winds and bright, shocking lightning flashes won't stop until they cross these plains.

And even though they know the truth, a young girl standing next to the Professor tries to remain blissfully ignorant of it. There could still be hope, Flora thinks, wishes, prays.

"It'd be best if we left now," the man in blue speaks up, "The storm won't end anytime soon."

"It's been storming for at least a thousand years, so _of course_ it won't," the boy next to Flora, Luke, speaks up. He's tired, as are the rest of them. They have been travelling for many days now, and they do not get many chances to rest.

A lightning strike sounds around them and lights the whole building up. Flora whimpers in retaliation, gripping the Professor's arm.

"Are you _sure _it won't miraculously end?" Flora asks, hopeful. The man above her chuckles and pats her head.

"I'm afraid not, dear. As Clive said, we should leave now so we can get there sooner," as he says it, he squeezes her hand gently and begins to take her outside, the others following behind him solemnly. In their silence, Flora lets lose her thoughts unto the Professor.

"Do... you think Emmy is okay?"

He nods, albeit a bit begrudgingly. "Yes, I think so. You know she's always had a knack for finding a way out of trouble."

Flora laughs, and then a small frown finds it's way onto her face, "And... do you think she can beat Sin?"

Though a simple little girl, Flora has never been a stranger to the truth of the Summoner's Pilgrimage. She knows what Emmy will do when they reach the ruins of a city long buried, and she knows what will happen if - _when_, she tries to remind herself to have hope - Sin is defeated.

The Professor had told her.

And Sin will be back, too, after a period of calm. The last calm started when Flora was quite young, and back then she danced in the sun with her parents and her friends, but then it ended all too soon, and her parents were killed by Sin itself.

The Professor found Flora, a young orphan, and took her in. For a year or so, they stayed together, and then Emmy became a summoner and things changed. They left London and took to the road. Her father figure objected to her wanting to become a guardian, but Flora would have none of it. She would not leave his side, nor would she leave Emmy's. Luke came, too, and though they were young children and often looked at strangely, Flora was happy to be a guardian.

Recently, though, Emmy had been kidnapped.

The Professor in question is silent as Flora tries to get herself out of her thoughts. He nods slowly, sadly, and forever trapped in his melancholy.

She squeezes his hand, "Tell me the story, please," she begins, and at his disapproving hesitance, she starts with her words again, "Professor, you haven't kept the truth from me for a long time, and I think it's time you told not just me, but everyone here the real reason you know the truth."

Clive's eyes widen, "You're perceptive, Flora," he starts, "Though I think you should let the Professor tell you when he wants to."

Luke shakes his head at that, though, "No, Clive, I want to hear."

They continue through the plains, slowly, hiding under lightning rods when they can, as the man nods slowly, and begins to tell his story. Though long past, his words are haunting and familiar, like they belong in some fairy tale.

* * *

He tells of a young summoner named Dimitri Allen, who asked Claire and her boyfriend, Hershel, to be his guardians. Claire accepted right away, of course, and though Hershel was concerned for the safety of himself and Claire, he agreed, concerned for Dimitri's fate.

He tells Flora of how Dimitri loved Claire like Hershel did, and how his pilgrimage was very unlike Emmy's - it transitioned smoothly, getting aeons smoothly and quickly, and they did not have to worry about the Maesters proposing marriage like Maester Henry did, and they reached Zanarkand without many issues.

And Claire was the one that Lady Sophia chose to sacrifice, for Dimitri felt so strongly for her and they were close friends. Claire had no objections to it and became Dimitri's final aeon, leaving Hershel alone after Dimitri and Claire passed on.

But Flora knew better, and she now knew why the Professor wanted to destroy Sin so badly. As did the other Guardians.

"So... Claire is Sin, then?" Clive asked, "And you would destroy her, even knowing who she is?"

The Professor nodded slowly, "Yes, I would. I have heard her tell me to destroy her. She hates killing all these people, and even if I could not hear her I would know that it would be what she wants."

"Professor... That carving you wear? Is that-"

"Yes, it is a carving of her. Of Sin."

The man wears Sin on his heart, Flora realizes, and if she were a deep follower of the Yevoner's praised religion, she might have felt differently about him. But she didn't. She simply squeezed his hand again, pressing closer to him as lightning kept striking.

The guardians walked in silence towards the next temple, where they hoped to find Emmy.


	3. Drabble 2: try a new life without you

**idk man. had some layclaire feels but i haven't been up to writing anything long. so i wrote this tiny drabble. bear with me.**

**next drabble will probably take place from claire's point of view, as i have an idea, and then i'll continue that ffx au a little bit.**

* * *

Moving away from his tiny, quaint flat is hard to do. But in light of recent events that have been even harder to deal with, he needs to go. Perhaps a change of scenery will make things easier, if only a little bit.

He got that teaching position anyway, so if anyone asks, he can routinely answer the way he normally does - to be closer to his new job.

There's no way to make losing her easier. But after talking to his mother, leaving this flat for another one might be one way to ease himself into the process.

Really, though, he can't imagine staying here any longer. Knowing that just a few blocks down is where that awful accident happened, where she took her last few breaths, makes him almost violently ill.

He can't decrease his need to grieve or mourn, but he can increase the distance between him and the last place he'll ever want to be.

As he lifts a box up off the floor, he stares back at the emptiness of it all. It feels sad, leaves him feeling some sort of heavy emotion, but he knows he has to move on - in more ways than one. His life has to go on without her, and this may just be how he has to start the changes that have been going through his life. Things are growing heavier, without her, after all.

Maybe this will lighten his load (metaphorically, of course, because the boxes of books he's been carrying sure are heavy). He needs that. He needs his shoulders to feel like the heavy weight left by sadness and grief (and the hours where he panicked over trying to remember his last words to her and vice versa) is being slowly lifted off. He doesn't know if the weight will ever truly leave, but he knows that he can try to remove some of it.

It's what she'd want, after all.


End file.
